


N O I R

by dulce_de_leche_go



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bartender Tom, Drabble, F/M, Film Noir, Hermione Birthday Fic, tomione - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 05:00:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13540200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dulce_de_leche_go/pseuds/dulce_de_leche_go
Summary: ONE-SHOT - Modern AU - Short fic written in celebration of Hermione Granger's birthday and originally posted on Tumblr. "What's a pretty bird like you doing in a dump like this?"





	N O I R

* * *

 

She sat down at his bar all dolled up in a curve hugging dress of sequin and lace. Her hair was pinned tightly along her scalp to a point on her crown where it all came spilling out into gorgeous ringlets that had to have taken her hours upon hours to manage.

If he had been any other man, he might have been smitten by how well she fit the dress (top and bottom). Or even by the way her lips pursed into a perfect, entrancing little pout all glossed in a wicked, dark shade of burgundy that screamed nothing less than _"drama."_ Seeing as he was who he was, though, Tom was smitten instead by those dark, clever, glinting eyes peering up at him from her equally dark lashes.

"Hello, love," he said, warm and with a charming tilt to his lips. "What's a pretty bird like you doing in a dump like this?"

His dark haired vixen let out an unladylike noise, a mixture between a scoff and a snort, and settled more comfortably on her stool. She dropped a glitzy handbag onto the bar and moved to start pulling pins free from her hair.

"Do you use that tired line on all the women you plan on taking home or is that new?"

Tom raised a brow at her blunt retort but merely shrugged. He watched pin after pin come out with soft little _tinks_ sounding as they hit the counter. Her tresses fell free, one after another and then another until she'd released at least half of them. They cascaded over one of her bare and delicate shoulders, taunting him like a cape to a bull and his fingers twitched with the urge to brush them back so he could see the dainty set of her shoulders.

"It's a valid question," he said, "and if you answer mine, I may answer yours."

She looked at him, paused in the midst of her unpinning and really _looked_ at him.

He didn't actually need to watch her undressing him with her eyes because he could have felt it - could have felt it from _metres_ away. He could practically imagine her going button by button, divesting him of his vest…his shirt…he guessed she'd gotten around to the belt of his trousers before she finally spoke up again.

"I was stood up."

She smirked when she spoke and Tom had never felt more like a piece of meat than when she eyed him in those moments.

"I came here looking for some… _company._ "

He decided he didn't necessarily dislike the feeling.

"Company," he echoed with a hum and wiped the one perpetually smudged spot on the bar that always needed cleaning.

"Company," she said again. She was _looking_ at him again, openly admiring his bartender's uniform and all the little pins and badges his employers required him to wear. Finally ceasing the take down of her monstrous mane of hair, she reached out to tilt the nametag fastened to his vest in her direction and purred, "So, _Tom,_ what's your answer?"

He smirked at her flirtatious tone, replying with, "Yes…to the first question."

Something flashed in those dark eyes of hers and her hand jerked away at the same time she huffed a disgusted noise past her painted lips.

Tom let out a bark of laughter but caught her before she'd withdrawn completely. He tugged her fingers back to him to kiss each of their tips one by one.

"Of course, since you're the only one I plan on taking home…"

"Prat." She scoffed again but he caught the way she tugged her lip between her teeth and her eyes couldn't seem to pull away from his lips.

Tom shrugged and turned her hand to place a soft kiss to the pulse point on her wrist.

"Work ran late," he said apologetically.

"I know." Her shoulders relaxed with another kiss and his murmured noise of affection.

"You look beautiful tonight."

"I know." She sniffed haughtily; he snorted.

"I'll make it up to you."

She smirked at that. "Oh, I _know_."

Tom matched her smirk with one of his own. "For the rest of your birthday." He swiped at that smudgy spot again and added, " _All_ night. And then one more for each hour that I missed with you today."

At that, she visibly preened and leaned over the bar to draw him into a languid kiss that was more a warm draw on his lips and her breathing in of his essence than anything else. His dark vixen kept him there, like that, for countless minutes. She massaged his lips and tongue with her own in deceptively innocent looking nips and tastes that made the few remaining pub's patrons gawk and stare until he was breathless and hard beneath the shelter of the bar.

She pulled away, let her chocolate colored stare rove over the sharp angles of his face and her fingers dance along the hollow of one cheek before nudging a short curl of his hair away from his brow.

"I know," she said finally with a wink. "I'll be waiting for you."

And with that, Tom watched her gather her hairpins into her bag, swiveled around on the expensively upholstered stool, and slide back to her stiletto clad feet with catlike grace. He watched his Hermione walk away, her hips rocking fluidly from one side to the other in that way she knew he adored.

_Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walked into mine._

Tom couldn’t have been more pleased.

"I know." He smirked at her back, shook his head, and wiped at that perpetual smudge until his _situation_ calmed itself down.


End file.
